om. MS. S. T. C.
While—on whom] While—on whom 1828, 1829.
object] Body MS. S. T. C.
are] are 1828, 1829.
thee—were] thee—were 1828, 1829.
HOMELESS[460:1]
A foretaste from above,
To him who hath a happy home
And love returned from love!'
The barb in Memory's dart,
To him who walks alone through Life,
The desolate in heart.
1826.
FOOTNOTES:
[460:1] First published in the Literary Magnet, January, 1827, p. 71. First collected in 1893. A transcript, possibly in Mrs. Gillman's handwriting, is inscribed on the fly-leaf of a copy of Bartram's Travels in South Carolina which Coleridge purchased in April 1818. J. D. Campbell prefixed the title 'Homeless', and assigned 1810 as a conjectural date. Attention was first called to publication in the Literary Magnet by Mr. Bertram Dobell in the Athenaeum.
LINENOTES:
Title] An Impromptu on Christmas Day L. M. 1827.
from] for L. M. 1827.
LINES[460:2]
SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGARIUS
OB. ANNO DOM. 1088
Soon shall I now before my God appear,
[461]By him to be acquitted, as I hope;
By him to be condemnéd, as I fear.—
Be of good cheer, meek soul! I would have said:
I see a hope spring from that humble fear.
All are not strong alike through storms to steer
Right onward. What? though dread of threatened death
And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath 10
Inconstant to the truth within thy heart!
That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start,
Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife,
Or not so vital as to claim thy life:
And myriads had reached Heaven, who never knew 15
Where lay the difference 'twixt the false and true!
Judge him who won them when he stood alone,
And proudly talk of recreant Berengare—
O first the age, and then the man compare! 20
That age how dark! congenial minds how rare!
No host of friends with kindred zeal did burn!
No throbbing hearts awaited his return!
Prostrate alike when prince and peasant fell,
He only disenchanted from the spell, 25
Like the weak worm that gems the starless night,
Moved in the scanty circlet of his light:
And was it strange if he withdrew the ray
That did but guide the night-birds to their prey?
Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn!
Yet not for this, if wise, shall we decry
The spots and struggles of the timid Dawn;
Lest so we tempt th' approaching Noon to scorn
The mists and painted vapours of our Morn. 35
? 1826.
FOOTNOTES:
[460:2] First published in the Literary Souvenir, 1827. The Epitaphium Testamentarium (vide post, p. 462) is printed in a footnote to the word 'Berengarius'. Included in 1828, 1829, and 1834.
LINENOTES:
learned] learned L. S.
recreant] recreant L. S., 1828, 1829.
his] his L. S.
shall] will L. S., 1828, 1829.
th' approaching] the coming L. S.
EPITAPHIUM TESTAMENTARIUM[462:1]
Τὸ τοῦ ἜΣΤΗΣΕ τοῦ ἐπιθανοῦς Epitaphium testamentarium αὐτόγραφον.
Do Morti: reddo caetera, Christe! tibi.
1826.
Ἔρως ἀεὶ λάληθρος ἑταῖρος[462:2]
The presence of the love it would conceal;
But in far more th' estrangéd heart lets know
The absence of the love, which yet it fain would shew.
1826.
FOOTNOTES:
[462:1] First published in Literary Souvenir of 1827, as footnote to title of the Lines Suggested by the Last Words of Berengarius: included in Literary Remains, 1836, i. 60: first collected in 1844.
[462:2] This quatrain was prefixed as a motto to 'Prose in Rhyme; and Epigrams, Moralities, and Things without a Name', the concluding section of 'Poems' in the edition of 1828, 1829, vol. ii, pp. 75-117. It was prefixed to 'Miscellaneous Poems' in 1834, vol. ii, pp. 55-152, and to 'Poems written in Later Life', 1852, pp. 319-78.
LINENOTES:
Title] ΕΠΙΤΑΦΙΟΝ ΑΥΤΟΓΡΑΠΤΟΝ L. R., 1844: ἐπιθανοῦς] ἐπιδανοὺς L. S.
The emendation ἐπιθανοῦς (i. e. moribund) was suggested by the Reader of Macmillan's edition of 1893. Other alternatives, e. g. ἐπιδευοῦς (the lacking), to the word as misprinted in the Literary Souvenir have been suggested, but there can be no doubt that what Coleridge intended to imply was that he was near his end.
Greek motto: Ἔρως ἀεὶ λάλος MS. S. T. C.
The Presence of the Love we would conceal,
But in how many more do we let know
The absence of the Love we found would show.
THE IMPROVISATORE[462:3]
OR, 'JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO, JOHN'
Scene—A spacious drawing-room, with music-room adjoining.
Katharine. What are the words?
Eliza. Ask our friend, the Improvisatore; here he comes. Kate has a favour to ask of you, Sir; it is that you will repeat the ballad[463:1] that Mr. —— sang so sweetly.
Friend. It is in Moore's Irish Melodies; but I do not recollect the words distinctly. The moral of them, however, I take to be this:—
When we were neither young nor new;
Yea, and in all within the will that came,
By the same proofs would show itself the same.
Eliz. What are the lines you repeated from Beaumont and Fletcher, which my mother admired so much? It begins with something about two vines so close that their tendrils intermingle.
Fri. You mean Charles' speech to Angelina, in The Elder Brother[463:2].
Circling our souls and loves in one another!
We'll spring together, and we'll bear one fruit;
One joy shall make us smile, and one grief mourn;
One age go with us, and one hour of death
Shall close our eyes, and one grave make us happy.
Kath. A precious boon, that would go far to reconcile one to old age—this love—if true! But is there any such true love?
Fri. I hope so.
Kath. But do you believe it?
Eliz. (eagerly). I am sure he does.
Fri. From a man turned of fifty, Katharine, I imagine, expects a less confident answer.
Kath. A more sincere one, perhaps.
Fri. Even though he should have obtained the nick-name of Improvisatore, by perpetrating charades and extempore verses at Christmas times?
Eliz. Nay, but be serious.
Fri. Serious! Doubtless. A grave personage of my years giving a Love-lecture to two young ladies, cannot well be otherwise. The difficulty, I suspect, would be for them to remain so. It will be asked whether I am not the 'elderly gentleman' who sate 'despairing beside a clear stream', with a willow for his wig-block.
Eliz. Say another word, and we will call it downright affectation.
Kath. No! we will be affronted, drop a courtesy, and ask pardon for our presumption in expecting that Mr. —— would waste his sense on two insignificant girls.
Fri. Well, well, I will be serious. Hem! Now then commences the discourse; Mr. Moore's song being the text. Love, as distinguished from Friendship, on the one hand, and from the passion that too often usurps its name, on the other—
Lucius (Eliza's brother, who had just joined the trio, in a whisper to the Friend). But is not Love the union of both?
Fri. (aside to Lucius). He never loved who thinks so.
Eliz. Brother, we don't want you. There! Mrs. H. cannot arrange the flower vase without you. Thank you, Mrs. Hartman.
Luc. I'll have my revenge! I know what I will say!
Eliz. Off! Off! Now, dear Sir,—Love, you were saying—
Fri. Hush! Preaching, you mean, Eliza.
Eliz. (impatiently). Pshaw!
Fri. Well then, I was saying that Love, truly such, is itself not the most common thing in the world: and mutual love still less so. But that enduring personal attachment, so beautifully delineated by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly, perhaps, in the well-known ballad, 'John Anderson, my Jo, John,' in addition to a depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence, supposes a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature; a constitutional communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul; a delight in the detail of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament within—to count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love. But above all, it supposes a soul which, even in the pride and summer-tide of life—even in the lustihood of health and strength, had felt oftenest and prized highest that which age cannot take away and which, in all our lovings, is the Love;—
Eliz. There is something here (pointing to her heart) that seems to understand you, but wants the word that would make it understand itself.
Kath. I, too, seem to feel what you mean. Interpret the feeling for us.
Fri. —— I mean that willing sense of the insufficingness of the self for itself, which predisposes a generous nature to see, in the total being of another, the supplement and completion of its own;—that quiet perpetual seeking which the presence of the beloved object modulates, not suspends, where the heart momently finds, and, finding, again seeks on;—lastly, when 'life's changeful orb has pass'd the full', a confirmed faith in the nobleness of humanity, thus brought home and pressed, as it were, to the very bosom of hourly experience; it supposes, I say, a heartfelt reverence for worth, not the less deep because divested of its solemnity by habit, by familiarity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of modesty which will arise in delicate minds, when they are conscious of possessing the same or the correspondent excellence in their own characters. In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels the beautiful and the excellent in the beloved as its own, and by right of love appropriates it, can call Goodness its Playfellow; and dares make sport of time and infirmity, while, in the person of a thousand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged Virtue the caressing fondness that belongs to the Innocence of childhood, and repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies which had been dictated by the same affection to the same object when attired in feminine loveliness or in manly beauty.
Eliz. What a soothing—what an elevating idea!
Kath. If it be not only an idea.
Fri. At all events, these qualities which I have enumerated, are rarely found united in a single individual. How much more rare must it be, that two such individuals should meet together in this wide world under circumstances that admit of their union as Husband and Wife. A person may be highly estimable on the whole, nay, amiable as neighbour, friend, housemate—in short, in all the concentric circles of attachment save only the last and inmost; and yet from how many causes be estranged from the highest perfection in this! Pride, coldness, or fastidiousness of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or ambitious disposition, a passion for display, a sullen temper,—one or the other—too often proves 'the dead fly in the compost of spices', and any one is enough to unfit it for the precious balm of unction. For some mighty good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort of solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that keeps itself alive by sucking the paws of its own self-importance. And as this high sense, or rather sensation of their own value is, for the most part, grounded on negative qualities, so they have no better means of preserving the same but by negatives—that is, by not doing or saying any thing, that might be put down for fond, silly, or nonsensical;—or (to use their own phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which some of their acquaintance are uncharitable enough to think the most worthless object they could be employed in remembering.
Eliz. (in answer to a whisper from Katharine). To a hair! He must have sate for it himself. Save me from such folks! But they are out of the question.
Fri. True! but the same effect is produced in thousands by the too general insensibility to a very important truth; this, namely, that the Misery of human life is made up of large masses, each separated from the other by certain intervals. One year, the death of a child; years after, a failure in trade; after another longer or shorter interval, a daughter may have married unhappily;—in all but the singularly unfortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum total of the unhappiness of a man's life, are easily counted, and distinctly remembered. The Happiness of life, on the contrary, is made up of minute fractions—the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling.
Kath. Well, Sir; you have said quite enough to make me despair of finding a 'John Anderson, my Jo, John', with whom to totter down the hill of life.
Fri. Not so! Good men are not, I trust, so much scarcer than good women, but that what another would find in you, you may hope to find in another. But well, however, may that boon be rare, the possession of which would be more than an adequate reward for the rarest virtue.
Eliz. Surely, he, who has described it so well, must have possessed it?
Fri. If he were worthy to have possessed it, and had believingly anticipated and not found it, how bitter the disappointment!
(Then, after a pause of a few minutes).
He had, or fancied that he had;
Say, 'twas but in his own conceit—
The fancy made him glad!
[467]Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish! 5
The boon, prefigured in his earliest wish,
The fair fulfilment of his poesy,
When his young heart first yearn'd for sympathy!
But e'en the meteor offspring of the brain
Unnourished wane; 10
Faith asks her daily bread,
And Fancy must be fed!
Now so it chanced—from wet or dry,
It boots not how—I know not why—
She missed her wonted food; and quickly 15
Poor Fancy stagger'd and grew sickly.
Then came a restless state, 'twixt yea and nay,
His faith was fix'd, his heart all ebb and flow;
Or like a bark, in some half-shelter'd bay,
Above its anchor driving to and fro. 20
In a belief, gave life a zest—
Uncertain both what it had been,
And if by error lost, or luck;
And what it was;—an evergreen 25
Which some insidious blight had struck,
Or annual flower, which, past its blow,
No vernal spell shall e'er revive;
Uncertain, and afraid to know,
Doubts toss'd him to and fro: 30
Hope keeping Love, Love Hope alive,
Like babes bewildered in a snow,
That cling and huddle from the cold
In hollow tree or ruin'd fold.
Fading, one by one away,
Thin and hueless as a ghost,
Poor Fancy on her sick bed lay;
Ill at distance, worse when near,
Telling her dreams to jealous Fear! 40
Where was it then, the sociable sprite
That crown'd the Poet's cup and deck'd his dish!
Poor shadow cast from an unsteady wish,
Itself a substance by no other right
But that it intercepted Reason's light; 45
[468]It dimm'd his eye, it darken'd on his brow,
A peevish mood, a tedious time, I trow!
Thank Heaven! 'tis not so now.
The boon of Heaven's decreeing, 50
While yet in Eden's bowers
Dwelt the first husband and his sinless mate!
The one sweet plant, which, piteous Heaven agreeing,
They bore with them thro' Eden's closing gate!
Of life's gay summer tide the sovran Rose! 55
Late autumn's Amaranth, that more fragrant blows
When Passion's flowers all fall or fade;
If this were ever his, in outward being,
Or but his own true love's projected shade,
Now that at length by certain proof he knows, 60
That whether real or a magic show,
Whate'er it was, it is no longer so;
Though heart be lonesome, Hope laid low,
Yet, Lady! deem him not unblest:
The certainty that struck Hope dead, 65
Hath left Contentment in her stead:
And that is next to Best!
1827.
FOOTNOTES:
[462:3] First published in the Amulet for 1828 (with a prose introduction entitled 'New Thoughts on Old Subjects; or Conversational Dialogues on Interests and Events of Common Life.' By S. T. Coleridge): included in 1829 and 1834. The text of 1834 is identical with that of the Amulet, 1828, but the italics in the prose dialogue were not reproduced. They have been replaced in the text of the present issue. The title may have been suggested by L. E. L.'s Improvisatrice published in 1824.
[463:1] 'Believe me if all those endearing young charms.'
[463:2] See Beaumont and Fletcher, The Elder Brother, Act III, Scene v. In the original the lines are printed as prose. In line 1 of the quotation Coleridge has substituted 'neighbour' for 'wanton', and in line 6, 'close' for 'shut'.
TO MARY PRIDHAM[468:1]
[AFTERWARDS MRS. DERWENT COLERIDGE]
Life's gayer views and all that stirs the mind,
Now I revive, Hope making a new start,
Since I have heard with most believing heart,
That all my glad eyes would grow bright to see, 5
My Derwent hath found realiz'd in thee,
[469]The boon prefigur'd in his earliest wish
Crown of his cup and garnish of his dish!
The fair fulfilment of his poesy,
When his young heart first yearn'd for sympathy! 10
Dear tho' unseen! unseen, yet long portray'd!
A Father's blessing on thee, gentle Maid!
16th October 1827.
FOOTNOTES:
[468:1] First published in 1893. Lines 7-10 are borrowed from lines 5-8 of the 'Answer ex improviso', which forms part of the Improvisatore (ll. 7, 8 are transposed). An original MS. is inscribed on the first page of an album presented to Mrs. Derwent Coleridge on her marriage, by her husband's friend, the Reverend John Moultrie. The editor of P. W., 1893, printed from another MS. dated Grove, Highgate, 15th October, 1827.
LINENOTES:
Title]: To Mary S. Pridham MS. S. T. C.
And rough my path thro' life, I murmur not—
Rather rejoice—
his] the MS. S. T. C. his] the MS. S. T. C.
ALICE DU CLOS[469:1]
OR THE FORKED TONGUE
A BALLAD
'One word with two meanings is the traitor's shield and shaft: and a slit tongue be his blazon!'—Caucasian Proverb.
But the dawn lies red on the dew:
Lord Julian has stolen from the hunters away,
Is seeking, Lady! for you.
Put on your dress of green, 5
Your buskins and your quiver:
Lord Julian is a hasty man,
Long waiting brook'd he never.
I dare not doubt him, that he means
To wed you on a day, 10
Your lord and master for to be,
And you his lady gay.
O Lady! throw your book aside!
I would not that my Lord should chide.'
To Alice, child of old Du Clos,
As spotless fair, as airy light
As that moon-shiny doe,
[470]The gold star on its brow, her sire's ancestral crest!
For ere the lark had left his nest, 20
She in the garden bower below
Sate loosely wrapt in maiden white,
Her face half drooping from the sight,
A snow-drop on a tuft of snow!
The studious maid, with book on knee,—
Ah! earliest-open'd flower;
While yet with keen unblunted light
The morning star shone opposite
The lattice of her bower— 30
Alone of all the starry host,
As if in prideful scorn
Of flight and fear he stay'd behind,
To brave th' advancing morn.
And she was conning then
Dan Ovid's mazy tale of loves,
And gods, and beasts, and men.
It thrill'd like venom thro' her brain; 40
Yet never from the book
She rais'd her head, nor did she deign
The knight a single look.
Thy wanton gaze on me? 45
And why, against my earnest suit,
Does Julian send by thee?
[471]'Go, tell thy Lord, that slow is sure:
Fair speed his shafts to-day!
I follow here a stronger lure, 50
And chase a gentler prey.'
The vassal knight reel'd off—
Like a huge billow from a bark
Toil'd in the deep sea-trough, 55
That shouldering sideways in mid plunge,
Is travers'd by a flash.
And staggering onward, leaves the ear
With dull and distant crash.
A moment; for the scoff was keen,
And thro' her veins did shiver!
Then rose and donn'd her dress of green,
Her buskins and her quiver.
From thro' the veiling mist you see
The black and shadowy stem;—
Smit by the sun the mist in glee
Dissolves to lightsome jewelry—
Each blossom hath its gem! 70
The gay maid on the garden-stile
Mimics the hunter's shout.
'Hip! Florian, hip! To horse, to horse!
Go, bring the palfrey out. 75
And, bonny boy, you wis,
Lord Julian is a hasty man,
Who comes late, comes amiss.'
A gallant boy of Spain,
That toss'd his head in joy and pride,
Behind his Lady fair to ride,
But blush'd to hold her train.
And forth they go; she with her bow,
Her buskins and her quiver!—
The squire—no younger e'er was seen—
With restless arm and laughing een,
He makes his javelin quiver. 90
And stopp'd to see, a moment's space,
The whole great globe of light
Give the last parting kiss-like touch
To the eastern ridge, it lack'd not much, 95
They had o'erta'en the knight.
Where Julian waiting stood,
A neighbour knight prick'd on to join
The huntsmen in the wood. 100
Tho' with an anger'd mind:
Betroth'd not wedded to his bride,
In vain he sought, 'twixt shame and pride,
Excuse to stay behind. 105
He look'd around, he look'd above,
But pretext none could find or frame.
Alas! alas! and well-a-day!
It grieves me sore to think, to say, 110
That names so seldom meet with Love,
Yet Love wants courage without a name!
O'er-branching, made an aisle,
Where hermit old might pace and chaunt 115
As in a minster's pile.
And from the twilight shade,
You pass at once into a green,
A green and lightsome glade. 120
Behind him, in a round,
Stood knight and squire, and menial train;
Against the leash the greyhounds strain;
The horses paw'd the ground. 125
Spurr'd in upon the sward,
And mute, without a word, did he
Fall in behind his lord.
'What! doth not Alice deign
To accept your loving convoy, knight?
Or doth she fear our woodland sleight,
And join us on the plain?'
And look'd askance on either side,—
'Nay, let the hunt proceed!—
The Lady's message that I bear,
I guess would scantly please your ear,
And less deserves your heed. 140
I found the middle door;—
Two stirrers only met my eyes,
Fair Alice, and one more.
In an unwelcome hour;
And found the daughter of Du Clos
Within the lattic'd bower.
No great loss, I divine; 150
And idle words will better suit
A fair maid's lips than mine.'
O'ermaster'd by the sudden smart;—
And feigning wrath, sharp, blunt, and rude, 155
The knight his subtle shift pursued.—
'Scowl not at me; command my skill,
To lure your hawk back, if you will,
But not a woman's heart.
Fair speed his shafts to-day!
I follow here a stronger lure,
And chase a gentler prey."
That then did, if I saw aright, 165
The fair dame's eyes engage;
For turning, as I took my ways,
I saw them fix'd with steadfast gaze
Full on her wanton page.'
It had but entered Julian's ear,—
[475]From two o'erarching oaks between,
With glist'ning helm-like cap is seen,
Borne on in giddy cheer,
Yet with reverted face doth ride,
As answering to a voice,
That seems at once to laugh and chide—
'Not mine, dear mistress,' still he cried,
''Tis this mad filly's choice.' 180
See! see! that face of hope and joy,
That regal front! those cheeks aglow!
Thou needed'st but the crescent sheen,
A quiver'd Dian to have been, 185
Thou lovely child of old Du Clos!
Swift as a dream, from forth the wood,
Sprang on the plighted Maid!
With fatal aim, and frantic force, 190
The shaft was hurl'd!—a lifeless corse,
Fair Alice from her vaulting horse,
Lies bleeding on the glade.
? 1828.